Examples of Situational Irony

Situational irony is a literary technique in which an expected outcome does not

happen, or its opposite happens instead. Situational irony requires one's
expectations to be thwarted and is also sometimes called an irony of events. The
outcome can be tragic or humorous, but it is always unexpected. Keep reading for
examples of situational irony from everyday life and literature.

Common Examples of Situational Irony

Situational irony is one of the three main types of irony. Some people mix it up with
coincidences, which occur when two unlikely events are actually quite similar. For
example, two friends coming to a party in the same dress is a coincidence. But two
friends coming to the party in the same dress after promising not to wear that dress
would be situational irony — you'd expect them to come in other clothes, but they
did the opposite. It's the last thing you expect.

Other everyday examples of situational irony include:

1.A fire station burns down.

This is unexpected because one would assume the fire chief would
keep his own building safe.
2.A marriage counselor files for divorce.
This is ironic because the expectation is that a professional who
coaches couples through rough patches would herself have a strong
marriage.
3.The police station gets robbed.
Again, the expectation is that professional crime fighters would be
able to help themselves; in this case, by securing their own station.
4.A post on Facebook complains about how useless Facebook is.
This is ironic because one would expect someone who dislikes
Facebook to stay away from it instead of using it to make their
point.
5.A traffic cop gets his license suspended because of unpaid parking
tickets.
Because the traffic cop is usually the one issuing tickets, most
people would assume he always followed the rules.
6.A pilot has a fear of heights.
This situation is ironic because airplane pilots spend most of their
time at work high in the air.
7.A member of PETA wears leather shoes.
Because PETA members work to protect animal rights, one would
assume they would avoid products made from animal skins.
8.An English teacher has poor grammar.
You'd expect an English teacher to be an expert in grammar. It
would be quite ironic if they couldn't actually use proper grammar.
9.A man who needs medical assistance is run over by the ambulance
sent to help him.
In this case, the man got the exact opposite of what he needed from
the medical help on the scene.
10.An anti-technology group sets up a website to recruit new club
members.
People who dislike technology aren't likely to be looking for clubs
on the internet, so using technology to recruit is unexpected.
11.A student passes a class with a well-written essay about how bad
the class is.
The class couldn't have been that bad if the student can write so
well. Plus, it's pretty ironic if complaining about the class is what
gets them to pass in the end.
12.A child runs away from someone throwing a water balloon at him
and falls into the pool.
This is ironic because the child ends up wetter than he would have
been, thwarting his expectations of what would happen when he ran
away from the water balloon.
13.The cobbler's children have no shoes.
A cobbler is a professional shoemaker, so the expectation is that her
own children would have many shoes, not zero.
14.The president is injured when a Secret Service agent knocks him
down while protecting him.
It's ironic because the Secret Service is tasked with protecting the
 president. They would be the last people you'd expect to actually
hurt him.
15.A man leaps out of the road to avoid being hit by a car, only to have
a tree branch fall on his head.
This is not the outcome the man expected because he thought he
would escape being hurt.
16.A defensive football team hits the running back so hard that he falls
into the endzone and scores a touchdown.
That's probably not what the team intended to do with their
overzealous blocking.
17.A Wall Street investor makes fun of others who are afraid of a risky
stock pick but later loses all his money.
The investor's expectations were not borne out in his stock
performance, but there's an increased sense of irony because he
was so confident.
18.A mother complains about her lazy children, not realizing they have
been secretly making her a birthday present.
In this situation, the mother's ideas about her children are thwarted
in an unexpected surprise.
19.A heartfelt movie about valuing love over commercialism has lots of
product placement.
The message of the anti-commercialism movie may be a little less
clear with all those subconscious advertisements in every scene.
20.A famous singer sings her own song at a karaoke bar but is booed.
You'd think that her version would be the best, but ironically, the
crowd feels the opposite way.

Examples of Situationa